Buy link: slinky.to/KinobeOutOfTheBlue
British chill band Kinobe is set to release their fifth studio album, Out of The Blue, on August 9th via the SGKL imprint. The album was conceived at Kinobe HQ, a beautiful beach house in Western Australia overlooking the Indian Ocean, and mastered by the legendary Frank Arkwright (Blur, New Order, Coldplay, Oasis, and many more) at Abbey Road.
Kinobe became the quintessential downtempo group with the 2000 release of their Engelbert Humperdinck-sampling single ‘Slip Into Something More Comfortable’, which became an essential on every beach bar playlist as well as being licensed for innumerable compilations, soundtracks, and TV commercials. Racking up over 50 million streams on Spotify alone, Kinobe has previously earned support from tastemaker publications CLASH Mag, Mixmag, DJ Mag, Sputnik Music, and Hot Press, and has been featured in British broadsheet newspapers The Guardian and The Independent. Their music has aired on BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 6 – The 6 Mix with Nemone. Notably, they have been featured numerous times in the CD collections and Youtube channel of the iconic Chill-music brand Café del Mar.
Originally from the UK and currently based in Perth, Australia, Kinobe was formed in west London in 1998 by childhood friends Julius Waters and Mark “Blackie” Blackburn. They formed a duo together after Waters’ return from Perth, Australia, where he had spent the greater part of his teens. Both multi-instrumentalists with a plethora of retro influences including soul, funk, blues, jazz, and R&B, they quickly began making music together.
Within a few months, and with a minimal setup of synth, computer, sampler, a record player found on the street, and boxes of charity shop vinyl, they had recorded enough material for their debut album and were quickly signed to Pepper Records, an imprint of Jive. That album, Soundphiles, was released in the year 2000 to instant acclaim.
Drawing on a vast array of influences from string arrangers like Nelson Riddle, composers like John Barry and Lalo Shifrin, crooners like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennet, to sixties bands like Canned Heat, Kinobe’s sound has drawn comparisons to the likes of lounge luminaries such as Air, Kruder & Dorfmeister, Groove Armada, and Thievery Corporation.
‘It’s Only A Dream’, begins with sweeping cinematic strings before kicking off with a groove so breezy that the listener could literally levitate into the clouds. Those whimsical strings, a sweet surfy guitar, slinking minimal synth bass and delicious ear candy take the listener on a surreal journey occasionally punctuated by smooth vocal lines, imparting snippets of psychedelic wisdom with the fine motif: “But remember cowboy, it’s only a dream.” The song captures the lush buoyancy of the entire album perfectly – listeners are in for a treat; an Alice In Wonderland-esque journey to the glorious warmth of the sixties and beyond.
Kinobe shared: “When writing “It’s Only A Dream” I was thinking about how sometimes we confuse dreams and reality, as if we have two lives in two different realities that occasionally spill into each other.”
Release date: August 7th, 2024.